If I Buy Something, Do I Own It?

A simple question with a simple answer, you would think. Yet, with the
impending winding down of MSN Music
<http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/games_consumer/my_dear_john_letter_from_msn_music.html>,
comes the latest in a long line of copy-protected download services which
take away your rights to use products you'd already bought.

How many times do customers need to be screwed before they will learn?

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On Apr 23, 12:30 pm, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <l...@geek-
central.gen.new_zealand> wrote:
> A simple question with a simple answer, you would think. Yet, with the
> impending winding down of MSN Music
> <http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/games_consumer/my_dear_john_le...>,
> comes the latest in a long line of copy-protected download services which
> take away your rights to use products you'd already bought.
>
> How many times do customers need to be screwed before they will learn?

Heck, I never even got as far as a download.

There was some promo a while back where you got a code and could
download a song from a website (came from a coke can or chocolate bar
wrapper). I tried and tried but could not play the song. It
downloaded ok but refused to play. I followed all of the DRM
troubleshooting instructions and despite downloading and installing
god alone knows what in my quest windows media player still refused to
play the song. What a total waste of time. I emailed the music 'sales'
site and told them that the experince was exactly what I expected and
far from obtaining a potential customer, I will not even bother
trying to use any service that uses a similar broken business model.

Suffice to say that when WCC Libray started offering downloadable
ebooks (nicely locked up with DRM) I decided to give it a miss. My
wife however wanted to try it. So we gave it a go. The system works
like this
1. You select you books online and download a file that points to the
ebook (just like a torrent!)
2. You try to download the OverDrive Media application that lets you
access the books.
3. Firstly the provided link for download goes nowhere
4. Swear
5. After googling we download one from somewhere and run it and it
does not work,
6. Email the ODM people
7. Wait.
8. Wait.
9. Finally get an email back with a new link.
10. New link does not work.
11. Swear
10. Give up.

About 2 months later my wife says she'd like to try again. This time
the ODM media link works! Hurrah! Now that ODM's little window to the
world of protected media is installed we do the following:
1. Drag the book icons to the ODM application (just like torrents!)
2. Download the books (just like torrents!)
3. Try to play the media.
4. Told that we don't have a key (not so much like torrents)
5. Swear
5. Try to install the key
6. Get told that WMP v11 is not good enough, we have to "upgrade" to
WMP 10.something.
7. Swear
8. Do something I can't remember and end up telling it to "upgrade"
WMP to version 10
9. Key installs, media works YAY!
10. Later on, try to play some locally copied (now legal) CD rips and
lo! WMP has lost all the tracks from the selection screens.
11. Try to add tracks back, tracks being found but not added to
database.
12. Swear.
13. Calm down, use google. turns out it is likley the database has
been corrupted, I suspect by my tricky up/downgrade.

Rebuilding the database was not a simple task and I gave up at that
stage as I was only using windows for adding metadata to pictures so I
just lived with no music until i got back to linux. Also we are not
going to download anymore ebooks from the library until the new ubuntu
is installed so that if/when wmp get corrupted again trying to use the
ebooks we have a fall back.

All in all DRM totally exceeded my expectations ... of crapness. I
wish the best of luck to anyone who willingly involves themselves with
it.

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On Apr 23, 2:35 pm, "geoff" <> wrote:
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> > A simple question with a simple answer, you would think. Yet, with the
> > impending winding down of MSN Music
> > <http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/games_consumer/my_dear_john_le...>,
> > comes the latest in a long line of copy-protected download services
> > which take away your rights to use products you'd already bought.
>
> > How many times do customers need to be screwed before they will learn?
>
> Larry, what don't you understand about that if you pay for a ride in a taxi,
> you don't own it ?
>
> geoff

Larry can't grasp the connection from investment to R&D to ROI. I
don't see why property rights would be any easier for him.

In article <>, geoff did write:
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> A simple question with a simple answer, you would think. Yet, with the
>> impending winding down of MSN Music
>>
<http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/games_consumer/my_dear_john_letter_from_msn_music.html>,
>> comes the latest in a long line of copy-protected download services
>> which take away your rights to use products you'd already bought.
>>
>> How many times do customers need to be screwed before they will learn?
>
> Larry, what don't you understand about that if you pay for a ride in a
> taxi, you don't own it ?

On Apr 23, 5:20 pm, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <l...@geek-
central.gen.new_zealand> wrote:
> In article <>, geoff did write:
>
> > Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
> >> A simple question with a simple answer, you would think. Yet, with the
> >> impending winding down of MSN Music
>
> <http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/games_consumer/my_dear_john_le...>,
>
> >> comes the latest in a long line of copy-protected download services
> >> which take away your rights to use products you'd already bought.
>
> >> How many times do customers need to be screwed before they will learn?
>
> > Larry, what don't you understand about that if you pay for a ride in a
> > taxi, you don't own it ?
>
> So, to you, property is like a ride in a taxi?

You can bet that nothing they've done is outside of the contract
accepted when paying for the tracks.

Buying DRM'd music is like purchasing a leased property - might look
good at first but a freaking terrible idea in the long haul.

The real problem with these services is that most people are not aware
of what they're buying in the first place.

On Apr 23, 5:20 pm, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <l...@geek-
central.gen.new_zealand> wrote:
> In article <>, geoff did write:
>
> > Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
> >> A simple question with a simple answer, you would think. Yet, with the
> >> impending winding down of MSN Music
>
> <http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/games_consumer/my_dear_john_le...>,
>
> >> comes the latest in a long line of copy-protected download services
> >> which take away your rights to use products you'd already bought.
>
> >> How many times do customers need to be screwed before they will learn?
>
> > Larry, what don't you understand about that if you pay for a ride in a
> > taxi, you don't own it ?
>
> So, to you, property is like a ride in a taxi?

JohnO wrote:
> On Apr 23, 5:20 pm, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <l...@geek-
> central.gen.new_zealand> wrote:
>> In article <>, geoff did write:
>>
>>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>>> A simple question with a simple answer, you would think. Yet, with the
>>>> impending winding down of MSN Music
>> <http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/games_consumer/my_dear_john_le...>,
>>
>>>> comes the latest in a long line of copy-protected download services
>>>> which take away your rights to use products you'd already bought.
>>>> How many times do customers need to be screwed before they will learn?
>>> Larry, what don't you understand about that if you pay for a ride in a
>>> taxi, you don't own it ?
>> So, to you, property is like a ride in a taxi?
>
> See Geoff? You might as well try to explain capitalism to a monkey.

If you assume Lawrence is a touch on the hirsute side then you're not
far wrong

On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:30:52 +1200, Lawrence D'Oliveiro
<_zealand> wrote:
>A simple question with a simple answer, you would think. Yet, with the
>impending winding down of MSN Music
><http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/games_consumer/my_dear_john_letter_from_msn_music.html>,
>comes the latest in a long line of copy-protected download services which
>take away your rights to use products you'd already bought.
>
>How many times do customers need to be screwed before they will learn?

If you download off Vodafone and get a new phone you're screwed too.

The only service worth touching is iTunes non-drm stuff, but it's aac
which might have been a good idea to get file size down, but with
storage being so cheap thesedays there's nothing wrong with mp3.

In article
<>, JohnO
did write:
> On Apr 23, 5:20 pm, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <l...@geek-
> central.gen.new_zealand> wrote:
>
>> In article <>, geoff did
>> write:
>>
>> > Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>> >> A simple question with a simple answer, you would think. Yet, with the
>> >> impending winding down of MSN Music
>>
>>
<http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/games_consumer/my_dear_john_le...>,
>>
>> >> comes the latest in a long line of copy-protected download services
>> >> which take away your rights to use products you'd already bought.
>>
>> >> How many times do customers need to be screwed before they will learn?
>>
>> > Larry, what don't you understand about that if you pay for a ride in a
>> > taxi, you don't own it ?
>>
>> So, to you, property is like a ride in a taxi?
>
> See Geoff? You might as well try to explain capitalism to a monkey.

This capitalist monkey would like to know whether you understand the
difference between purchasing something and hiring it, and whether you
understand that those MSN Music customers were led to believe that they
were purchasing songs, not hiring them.

In article <>, Smoking Causes Lung
Cancer (SCLC) did write:
> You don't, however, purchase Microsoft software. You license it, and can
> continue to use it providing you conform to the terms of the license.

In article <fulvvp$qnk$>, Lawrence D'Oliveiro did write:
> A simple question with a simple answer, you would think. Yet, with the
> impending winding down of MSN Music
>
<http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/games_consumer/my_dear_john_letter_from_msn_music.html>,
> comes the latest in a long line of copy-protected download services which
> take away your rights to use products you'd already bought.
>
> How many times do customers need to be screwed before they will learn?

This <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/30/eff_msn_music_open_letter/>
would be so funny, except it's not a joke--Microsoft's excuse for shutting
down the MSN Music DRM servers:

"Every time there is an OS upgrade, the DRM equation gets complex very
quickly," Bennett said. "Every time, you saw support issues. People
would call in because they couldn't download licenses. We had to write
new code, new configurations each time."

That's right, DRM is a fucking pain in the arse, therefore it makes better
business sense to leave the customers in the lurch.

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